The 18
Based on the true story of Fernand Magellan's voyage
A graphic novel series by Louis Perez y Cid.
In 1519, 240 men set sail from Seville. Seasoned sailors, inexperienced foreigners, men haunted by their past, and children.
Five ships embarked for the Ocean Sea under the command of Fernand Magellan.
No one knew their true destination. Two years' worth of provisions were on board.
The maps stopped where their route began. They set off into the void.
Three years later, only one ship returned, carrying several tons of cloves and… 18 survivors.
Captain Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in history.
But between departure and return, there was no glory.
There is hunger, fear, betrayal, cold, suffocating heat, mutiny, fighting, and blood—lots of blood.
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This is not a legend. It's worse.
For over ten years, I explored archives, accounts, and maps.
This journey is one of the best-documented of its century. Everything is there: the dates, the names, the conflicts, and the deaths.
The stakes of this journey were nothing less than the monopoly on the luxury commodity that played a leading role in the European economy of that era: spices.
The challenge of the screenplay was not to invent.
The challenge was to make the heart beat beneath the chronology and to preserve the epic sweep of great sagas.
The Choice of the “Grumetes”
To rediscover freedom and emotion in my narrative, I chose to recount the expedition through the eyes of the most invisible: the “grumetes,” those whom History forgets.
Orphans, street children, children without status, embarked like equipment. They were numerous, more than a quarter of the crew if we include cabin boys and pages.
From a child’s perspective, the adventure takes on a different face.
The storm is no longer a maritime event; it is the possible end.
The mutiny is no longer a political episode; it is the fear of being slaughtered in the shadows.
The captain is no longer a historical figure; he is a man to be admired, feared, and not always understood.
Behind the figures of heroes frozen by legend, a human story emerges through their eyes.
This journey is one of the best-documented of its century. Everything is there: the dates, the names, the conflicts, and the deaths.
The stakes of this journey were nothing less than the monopoly on the luxury commodity that played a leading role in the European economy of that era: spices.
The challenge of the screenplay was not to invent.
The challenge was to make the heart beat beneath the chronology and to preserve the epic sweep of great sagas.
The Choice of the “Grumetes”
To rediscover freedom and emotion in my narrative, I chose to recount the expedition through the eyes of the most invisible: the “grumetes,” those whom History forgets.
Orphans, street children, children without status, embarked like equipment. They were numerous, more than a quarter of the crew if we include cabin boys and pages.
From a child’s perspective, the adventure takes on a different face.
The storm is no longer a maritime event; it is the possible end.
The mutiny is no longer a political episode; it is the fear of being slaughtered in the shadows.
The captain is no longer a historical figure; he is a man to be admired, feared, and not always understood.
Behind the figures of heroes frozen by legend, a human story emerges through their eyes.
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The Artifice of a Narrator.
Our story opens in 1571, in a Galician abbey. An old man recounts his tale. He was a grumete, one of the 18. By including this device, I can develop the epic while preserving the historical foundation.
This narrator gives the story a visceral depth; we know from the outset that almost all of them will die, and yet, we become attached to them. Fifty-three years have passed. Memory doesn't glorify; it weighs heavily. It returns in fragments. It still trembles.
The soul of the 18
This voyage is not merely a maritime feat. It is a constant struggle against the political powers that maneuver in the shadows. Against the sea, against the southern cold and the sweltering heat of the tropics. Against the men themselves.
Nothing was predetermined, nothing was a given. What sustained them was an almost irrational will to see it through to the end. An obstinacy that transcends personal ambition.
This is what *The 18* recounts: the inner fire that drives some men, and some children, to forge ahead when everything should make them give up.
A six-volume epic
The journey lasted three years.
Time was needed to respect its density; the series unfolds across six albums.
The first is fully drawn and currently being colored.
The second is three-quarters drawn.
The third is storyboarded.
The three remaining scripts are written.
The adventure itself remains intact. The journey continues.
Our story opens in 1571, in a Galician abbey. An old man recounts his tale. He was a grumete, one of the 18. By including this device, I can develop the epic while preserving the historical foundation.
This narrator gives the story a visceral depth; we know from the outset that almost all of them will die, and yet, we become attached to them. Fifty-three years have passed. Memory doesn't glorify; it weighs heavily. It returns in fragments. It still trembles.
The soul of the 18
This voyage is not merely a maritime feat. It is a constant struggle against the political powers that maneuver in the shadows. Against the sea, against the southern cold and the sweltering heat of the tropics. Against the men themselves.
Nothing was predetermined, nothing was a given. What sustained them was an almost irrational will to see it through to the end. An obstinacy that transcends personal ambition.
This is what *The 18* recounts: the inner fire that drives some men, and some children, to forge ahead when everything should make them give up.
A six-volume epic
The journey lasted three years.
Time was needed to respect its density; the series unfolds across six albums.
The first is fully drawn and currently being colored.
The second is three-quarters drawn.
The third is storyboarded.
The three remaining scripts are written.
The adventure itself remains intact. The journey continues.
.jpg?t=19bb03f6_400f_44ca_ba51_b0895320a168)
The first album. Before the legend
Fernand Magellan is often depicted at the moment of his triumph, when he crosses the strait that will bear his name—that's for the artists.
But before the strait, there were refusals, doubts, political maneuvers, threats, and mistrust.
Then there was isolation. No one can advise him, his destination is secret, and no one can predict the length of the voyage.
Experienced sailors refuse to embark. They must recruit elsewhere.
Convert aging ships. Prepare for the unpredictable.
Perhaps the greatest feat wasn't crossing the strait.
Perhaps it was convincing men, and children, to leave.
Fernand Magellan is often depicted at the moment of his triumph, when he crosses the strait that will bear his name—that's for the artists.
But before the strait, there were refusals, doubts, political maneuvers, threats, and mistrust.
Then there was isolation. No one can advise him, his destination is secret, and no one can predict the length of the voyage.
Experienced sailors refuse to embark. They must recruit elsewhere.
Convert aging ships. Prepare for the unpredictable.
Perhaps the greatest feat wasn't crossing the strait.
Perhaps it was convincing men, and children, to leave.
.jpg?t=19bb03f6_400f_44ca_ba51_b0895320a168)
Excerpt from a grumete's dialogue at the beginning of the graphic novel.
"At the time, I knew nothing. Kings, treaties, maps kept under lock and key, and even the sea. My friend Vasco and I just wanted to eat our fill and leave the docks where you amount to nothing.
In 1518, we were taken on as grumetes aboard the Trinidad, Fernand Magellan's flagship. We were given a bowl, a bed, and a place among the men." We didn't know where we were going, we only knew that we wouldn't turn back. Savages took my friends, the sea took some many others.
We continued, through the cold, through hunger, to the ends of the earth.”
When the Victoria, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano, returned to Seville…
“The sea can kill a man. It cannot break him.”
The Value of Spices
Cloves, the most spectacular example
Cloves, originating exclusively from the Moluccas, were the most precious spice at the beginning of the 16th century. At the beginning of the 16th century, in London or Antwerp, 1 kg of cloves could be worth the equivalent of 7 to 10 g of gold.
In practical terms, this means:
A bag of cloves = a small treasure
A well-preserved cargo = instant wealth
A comparison everyone can relate to
Annual salary vs. spices
Around 1500:
A sailor or skilled worker earned approximately 5 to 10 ducats per year
1 kg of pepper could be worth 1 ducat or more in Europe
A single bag of pepper could represent several months' salary.
Dowry, ransom, inheritance
Archives show that:
Aristocratic dowries were sometimes partially paid in spices
Significant debts could be settled with pepper or nutmeg
Post-mortem inventories listed spices alongside gold and silverware
Spices were a store of value, not just a condiment.
Pepper, the “black gold” of the late Middle Ages
Pepper was so precious that:
It served as currency
There was talk of pepper rent (rents paid in pepper)
It was stored in locked chests
A medieval saying, still quoted in the 16th century, was “Rich as a pepper merchant.”
Why this exorbitant value?
Extreme scarcity (very limited production areas)
Vital usefulness: food preservation, medicine, perfumes, social status.
Trade monopolies (Venetian, then Portuguese)
In Magellan’s time, a handful of spices could be worth its weight in silver, and sometimes approach that of gold.
Solid historical reference (16th century)
Antonio Pigafetta, the official chronicler of Magellan’s expedition, wrote about the return of the Victoria (1522) in “Account of the First Voyage Around the World” (1524), archives of the Casa de Contratación in Seville. “The ship returned laden with cloves, in such quantity that their sale alone was enough to cover all the expedition’s expenses.” This sentence is crucial because it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a single cargo of spices compensated for the loss of four out of five ships and the deaths of the vast majority of the crews.
"At the time, I knew nothing. Kings, treaties, maps kept under lock and key, and even the sea. My friend Vasco and I just wanted to eat our fill and leave the docks where you amount to nothing.
In 1518, we were taken on as grumetes aboard the Trinidad, Fernand Magellan's flagship. We were given a bowl, a bed, and a place among the men." We didn't know where we were going, we only knew that we wouldn't turn back. Savages took my friends, the sea took some many others.
We continued, through the cold, through hunger, to the ends of the earth.”
When the Victoria, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano, returned to Seville…
“The sea can kill a man. It cannot break him.”
The Value of Spices
Cloves, the most spectacular example
Cloves, originating exclusively from the Moluccas, were the most precious spice at the beginning of the 16th century. At the beginning of the 16th century, in London or Antwerp, 1 kg of cloves could be worth the equivalent of 7 to 10 g of gold.
In practical terms, this means:
A bag of cloves = a small treasure
A well-preserved cargo = instant wealth
A comparison everyone can relate to
Annual salary vs. spices
Around 1500:
A sailor or skilled worker earned approximately 5 to 10 ducats per year
1 kg of pepper could be worth 1 ducat or more in Europe
A single bag of pepper could represent several months' salary.
Dowry, ransom, inheritance
Archives show that:
Aristocratic dowries were sometimes partially paid in spices
Significant debts could be settled with pepper or nutmeg
Post-mortem inventories listed spices alongside gold and silverware
Spices were a store of value, not just a condiment.
Pepper, the “black gold” of the late Middle Ages
Pepper was so precious that:
It served as currency
There was talk of pepper rent (rents paid in pepper)
It was stored in locked chests
A medieval saying, still quoted in the 16th century, was “Rich as a pepper merchant.”
Why this exorbitant value?
Extreme scarcity (very limited production areas)
Vital usefulness: food preservation, medicine, perfumes, social status.
Trade monopolies (Venetian, then Portuguese)
In Magellan’s time, a handful of spices could be worth its weight in silver, and sometimes approach that of gold.
Solid historical reference (16th century)
Antonio Pigafetta, the official chronicler of Magellan’s expedition, wrote about the return of the Victoria (1522) in “Account of the First Voyage Around the World” (1524), archives of the Casa de Contratación in Seville. “The ship returned laden with cloves, in such quantity that their sale alone was enough to cover all the expedition’s expenses.” This sentence is crucial because it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a single cargo of spices compensated for the loss of four out of five ships and the deaths of the vast majority of the crews.
The publication of the graphic novel series
My goal is not financial. It is deeply passionate. This story has gripped me for over ten years and has never let go. I must tell this epic tale as I experience it, without compromise.
I promised my children that this project would come to fruition, God willing. I will keep that promise.
Publishing is not my priority. Digital or print format, traditional publishing house or self-publishing, it makes no difference to me. When the time comes, my children will decide the path forward and will be the ones to benefit.
However, one thing is clear: I will not be publishing this series with "Légion'arts éditions". I want to avoid any conflict of interest and any criticism that could tarnish a work which, in my eyes, is immense.
I promised my children that this project would come to fruition, God willing. I will keep that promise.
Publishing is not my priority. Digital or print format, traditional publishing house or self-publishing, it makes no difference to me. When the time comes, my children will decide the path forward and will be the ones to benefit.
However, one thing is clear: I will not be publishing this series with "Légion'arts éditions". I want to avoid any conflict of interest and any criticism that could tarnish a work which, in my eyes, is immense.